Does Your Company Know What It Knows?

“…As I discovered during a recent tour of corporate mission statements, almost all companies say they want to empower their people, who are their most important asset… Their decision makers talk not about empowerment, but instead act like nannies, guards, security paranoiacs, or pessimists about the people they hire, pay, and entrust with the future of the organization.

So who actually embraces Enterprise 2.0?

Many organizations with traditionally open and progressive cultures have. But so have many others that I would have labeled stodgy and conservative. I can’t yet see a common thread across them, unless it’s people at the top who believe their own mission statement, and who think that the work of a leader is, as Nelson Mandela has said, to find everyone’s ‘spark of genius.’

The second question — what happens to organizations that embrace Enterprise 2.0 — I find simpler to answer. They do a much better job of knowing what they know. Because so much more of the work and thinking of the organization is visible, people can find what they’re looking for, and who they’re looking for, with great ease. They can also often exhibit heartening levels of altruism, problem-solving ability, and collective intelligence…”